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0t a ad its Mti 



AN ORATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BURLINGTON, N. J., 



ON THE OCCASION ok Till-Ill CKI.EBKATIo.V OF THH 



EIGHTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY, 



JULY 4th, 1862. 



By J. HOWARD PUGH, M. U. 



PRINTED FOB THE BENEFIT OF THE LADIES' AID SOCIETY OF BUBLINGTON. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
18 2. 



*^ 




Out ^ttion antl its rUrfcntlnvs: 



AX ORATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BUKUNGTON, X. J., 



ON THE OCCASION OP THEIR CELEBRATION OF THB 



EIGHTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY, 



JULY 4th, 1862. 



By J. HOWARD PUGH, M. D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
18G2. 






61605 

'Of 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



3 

A 

<* 

Burlington, July 8th, 1862. 
,x v Doct. J. Howard Pugh, 

Dear Sir : 

Having listened, with so much pleasure and 

profit, to the appropriate and impressive address with which yon favored as 
upon the occasion <>r the recent celebration of "Independence Day,** we feel 
that wo would be failing in duty to those of our fellow-citizens who were 
deprived of that gratification, were we to allow the occasion to go by and be 
forgotten, without taking measures to have your remarks placed upon i 
and to secure their dissemination among the reading and thinking membi re 
of the community. Our own sentiments are so ably and admirably expressed 
therein, that we wish to have the privilege of presenting them in that sha] e to 
all our friends, not only in our own community, but wherever we can reach 
them — for even by those who assisted at the original delivery, they will bear 
perusing often and pondering- well. We trust they will carry conviction to the 
misguided, and strengthen the convictions of the wavering. With this view, 
we would request the favor of a copy of your address, for publication. 
Very respectfully, 

Your fellow citizens, 

FRANKLIN WOOLMAN, M. KNOWLTON, 

THOMAS ROBB, J. D. ABERCROMBIE, 

THOS. MILXOR, RICH. SHIPPEX, 

JOHN D. MOORE, WM. R. ALLEN, 

JOHN RODGERS, JAS. STERLING, 

N. T. HIGBIE, FRED. BROWN. 



Burlington, July 11///, 1802. 
Gentlemen : 

Your kind and flattering favor of the 8th inst., is before me. You can 
judge better than I, and if you think there is anything, in my Oration, at all 
likely to strengthen or enlighten the patriotism of a single American, I shall 
cordially co-operate with you in publishing it. For, however much 1 may fear 
that its usefulness will fall far short of your wishes, yet, I know that no man 
now has a right to withhold a word, or refuse a deed which he has any just reason 
to suppose will aid, in the least, the cause of his country. Such reason you 
have given me in your kind and partial estimate of my effort, and for this I 
sincerely thank you. 

Trusting that our beloved country, so dear to all our hearts, so freighted 
with all our hopes, may soon emerge triumphant from the fierce struggle with 
its foes, 

I remain, 

Very faithfully yours, 

J. HOWARD PUGH. 
To Messrs. Woolman, Robb, Milnor and others, Committee. 



OUR UNIOX AND ITS DEFENDERS. 



In the ways of Providence, there is always fitness in the 
smallest as in the greatest things. It is on the Fourth of 
July, in midsummer, that we hold the anniversary festivals 
of American Independence. And it is a beautiful ordering 
of the Providence that rules the seasons and the nations, that 
the time of these anniversaries is so well suited to the occa- 
sion. For it is fitting, that in the midst of glorious summer 
days, when the earth lies richest in the sunlight; when the 
fields are golden with the harvests; when the air is fragrant 
with the scent of flowers and the new hay ; when, in a word, 
the beauty and the bounty of nature, unite to fill the heart 
with oiadness and with gratitude, we should meet in kindred 
joy and thankfulness to celebrate our nation's natal day. 
For sunshine is the symbol of prosperity, and summer the 
symbol of peace ; and the wondrous bounty of the season 
fitly typifies the fruits of that civil and religious liberty, to 
establish which our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes 
and their sacred honour. Not that all these anniversaries 
have been, or will be days of jubilee. Not that the chill and 
sombreness of winter have not settled, will not settle, upon 
some. For many stormy years were passed, before the hope 
that dawned on that July morning in 76 became a full and 
crowned reality. And then, you remember the day of the 
grand jubilee proper, the fiftieth anniversary of our Inde- 
pendence, when both Jefferson— the author, and Adams — 
the most eloquent supporter, of the declaration, died. And 
then, you remember to-day one year ago, when the American 
Congress met in a beleaguered city, within the sound of 
rebel cannon, with rebel ensigns flaunting almost in the face 



of the Oapitol, ra a and determined counsel to 

i ad means to save tbe nation from destruction 
at the bands of its own misguided children. And then, to- 
day; what shall 1 To-. lav. when sorrow sits 
in a million homes, when the shadow of civil war 
still rests like a pall upon the nation, wheu iii the beautiful 
Virginia that Washington loved, his children are grappling 

in the death. Still, it is true, that in the eighty 

odd j our Independence that have passed, there have 

■ •. of ■' •• anniversary days that have not wholly 

and with the blessing of G-od a little 

•• on our Onion armies, there will be fewer vet in the 
.- years that are to come; fewer yet, I trust, in all the 
•nant future upon which t lie summer will not 
smile in poetic fitness, and which a grateful people will not 
with shouts of gladness and with 
We have all learned to revere the memory of the men 
who framed and adopted the Declaration "I Independence. 
All men and all nations have lei rned to regard with admira- 
tion tl the i, tl titude, the exhausl 

with which our fathers fought the hatl 1 dom 

and inaugurated on this continent the " great ezperin 
of popular government. No one now dares to question the 
wisdom <>f their policy, the lofty purity of their lives and 
purposes, or the sublime quality of that heroic faith in the 
final triumph of their cause, which never failed them in the 
darkest hours of their long and bitter Btruggle to 1h> free. 
There n all around them, as th 

HOW in the war we are waging hut there is no o: 
vouchsafe a word of praise on behalf of the tories of the 

lution. They have sunk to that oblivion, or have 

1 thai unenviable immortality, which belongs to the 

all who fail their country in its hour of trial, and have 

mpathy but for its enemies. Only; 
aided the Colonies in their Btruggle with Britain are 
remembered now with gratitude. And having been, for 

ara and more, a great ami p is and happy 

i 



people, we feel increasingly, as the years go by, that we 
cannot venerate the men too highly, through whose blood 
and tears, and prayers and blessings, we were made and 
kept a nation. On a day like this, and in these hours of 
our history, facts like these have great significance. 

It is one of the uses of history to teach us what are the 
noblest uses of life; what deeds live longest in the memories 
of men ; what motives give greatest strength and nobility to 
character; what fruition follows godlike sacrifices for truth 
and duty ; what ideas and principles, embodied in life, lift 
men above the common level and crown them with immortal 
honours. It is one of the uses of a day like this to turn us 
back to higher sources of inspiration, that we may be the 
more manfully fitted for the duties of our time, that Ave may 
learn the cost of liberty, and the worth of patriotism, and the 
sacredness of principle, and the holiness of duty. It is one of 
the uses of a day like this to teach us that our selfish aims 
and interests and motives, our lives of luxury and frivolity, 
of leisuredoving and wealth-seeking, all sink to a level of 
lowest significance, when contrasted with great heroic virtues 
such as bore our fathers through the storm and struggle of 
the Revolution. And when these lessons have been learned 
by a people, and when in the Providence of God the darkest 
hours of their history have come ; when they are compelled 
themselves to strike for liberty or see it perish ; when they 
have risen to that height of patriotism that they exclaim 
with old John Adams in '76, that all that they have, and all 
that they are, and all that they hope for in this life, they are 
ready to stake upon the altar of their country ; when, filled 
with such inspiration, they go forth from homes of happi- 
ness and peace to fields of carnage and of death, then, above 
all, does it belong to the uses of a day like this to teach the 
mourning women of the land, and the children that are 
fatherless, that these dying and dead soldiers are one with 
the heroes of the Revolution ; that our country's history 
will embalm their names with equal honour and a common 



8 

and that :i grateful people throughout all the long and 
oomiug years will " keep their memorj 

And this >ha!l be my theme to day ; to consider whither the 
nation onr father- left as is drifting; to consider what we are 
fighting for; and to enquire whether the hi the strug- 

gle of today ^\o not deserve equal honor with their illustrious 
sires. Nor have I any doubt of the fitness of this theme for 
the time and the occasion. For onr lathers fought ' 
a nation. \\',- fight to have that nation live, to keep il 

and indivisible, and vain were the Btruggles of the Revolu- 
and vain the consecration of days like this to Revolu- 
tionary memories, it' they failed to bring out into highest 
prominence such deeds as those of the past and passing 

year. Our lathers fought to create a nation. And for 
eighty years there was no sublimer sight beneath the stare 
than the nation they created. During these eighty years. 
this people grew 1'rotn three to thirty millions, from thir- 
to thirty-four States. They developed energies such as 
the world had seldom witnessed. With marvellous rapidity 

they levelled forests and buiMed cities; they tun;; 
mountains, and cultivated valleys v. injures; they 

made their mountain streams turn mills and factories and 
bear on their bosoms to the sea. and to all the world, the 
fruits of this industry and the products of the land. They 
dug out from the bosom of the. rocky hills and from dark 
subterranean recesses a wealth greater than the Indies, and 
made the wilderness above them to"bud and blossom as 
the rose."' T w to be a thinking, toiling, tireless 

people, and turning from their material successes, they I 
to manifest progress and proficiency in literature, in science 
and in art. And all alon inducted a system oi 

ernment which had no parallel in history, the succei 
which was distrusted by many of our early statesmen, and 
by all the world beside-. And high above all the evide 
of their wealth and power, above all the beauties and beiicli- 
of their soil and clime, rose the crowiiimr fact that 
: ding millions were the freest people upon 



9 

earth; that they enjoyed, in larger measure than the world 
had ever known, the privileges and prerogatives that belong 
to manhood, and that they held inviolably sacred, as their 
fathers before them, their right to "life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness." I know to what criticism these remarks 
are open. I know somewhat of the faults and follies of this 
age and nation. I know how prone we are upon days like 
this to forget our mistakes, our follies and our crimes, and 
to indulge in strains of national eulogy, and, I confess, these 
strains I have rarely relished. I know, too, how common is 
the autocratic talk that the equal rights, the enlarged 
liberties, which our institutions secure to the citizen, tend 
only to license in thought and speech, to fanaticism, to law- 
lessness, to disrespect of authority, to no-government. Ami 
yet I know that it has not been the bestowment of privileges 
upon the many, but the despotic domination of the irrespon- 
sible few that has always cursed humanity. And when I 
remember how seldom in all the world the fundamental 
rights of man have been ever recognized ; how throughout 
all time the millions have been toiling, suffering, dying, to 
keep a few priests in power, or a few tyrants on their 
thrones ; how the few, whom the accidents of birth or for- 
tune have clothed with titles and dignities and powers, fill 
all the spaces of history, while the patient masses figure 
only as their suppliants and tools, then I am glad to turn to 
our eighty years of history, and through all its mistakes 
and blemishes and inconsistencies, to recognize the great 
central fact that has struggled upon this continent into end- 
less life, that the rights of men are equal, that men have 
higher uses than to become appendages of nobility or para- 
sites of royalty, that birth and blood are nothing, that names 
and titles are nothing, that all the outward emblems of 
wealth and greatness are nothing, compared with the rights 
which all men possess in common, compared with the 
qualities with which God may, and often does, endow the 
humblest born of earth. 

And this Nation which our Fathers founded, and which 



10 

thus i 

t now! Ct ia racked and rent with civil war. In 
tan a year, a hundred new battle-fields have 
added to its history. v. 

;. The land is filled wit Eearta arc 

a today that a year a high with hope, and 

and happiness. Childhood, and womanhood, and totter* 

pa all gone, are mingling their tears and 

pray y, in the, bittern* ow that will never 

end on earth. 

1 believe that the war now waged by <>ur Northern armies 

just and righl the world has n< . 

I believe that there never has been a time when the 

rnment could have avoided the conflict without unutter- 

dishonour, and that it will inherit and deserve the 

mpt of humanity if it fail to continue the Btruggle with 

the utmost vigor, until every atom of this rebellion is 

crushed into annihilation. Whether this be the proper 

to take of the war. or not, is a question of momentous import. 

■ w can we find comfort for the mourners, who 

tli the idols of their households to die in its 

•; or how can we fitly rebuke those who would d< 
Borrows and dampen all patriotic ardor, by their open 
sympathy with our enemies in arms? Therefore, do 

• i ask and answer the question, "What ai 
What we are not fighting for is appi 

enough. We are not fighting for the abolition oi 

We as Lord John Russell says, lor empire. 

We i • fighting from love of power — from vindictive- 

\, re fighting simply for our own. We 

iblish, on foundations eternal as our 

mountaii rand, stupendous, raphical fact, that 

:i untryandpi eg between "the St. John's and the 

Tortugas [slands and Vancouver's 

Land," compo Vation, and are called "The Unit 

In a public address I delivered in this oity, some years 



11 

ago, occurred these words, viz.: "All over the land, the 
politicians are echoing the cry of disunion, but thi 
do not hear it, or do not heed it ; they are busy at I 
workshops, on their farms, doing daily duty, earning d 
bread, and they do not hear it ; but when they do — when 
the talk of politicians begins to shape itself to deeds — they 
will smother the life out of this disunion cry." I 
then, as I believe now, and as events have proved, if rightly 
interpreted, that the common sense of the common people — 
of the American masses — had long ago settled the true 
Yalue of the American Union. The intuitions of a ]> 
are better than their logic. Their profoundest convid 
make the least noise. Not by argument — not by the 
of politicians, nor the expositions of statesmen — but by the 
benefits and blessings that flow in upon them through the 
passing years, do men learn to measure best the value of 
their institutions. The greatest truths sink into the heart 
silently, like the dews of Heaven. As the influences 
home and of Christian example mould and fix the character, 
so do the influences of good government and beneficent 
institutions settle the convictions of a people, unconsciously, 
noiselessly, but most profoundly. And it is often true, that 
nothing but some great world upheaval can arouse men to a 
consciousness of their slumbering powers, their sublime 
beliefs, and duties, and perils. So still, and strong, and deep 
was the faith of the American people in the perpetuity and 
inestimable worth of the American Union, that they could 
not believe it was in danger. But when they saw the 
danger, when they knew that rebel cannon were bombarding 
Sumter, and that the United States flag had been shot from 
the walls of a United States fort, then they rose. And 
when Banks was retreating, a month ago, they rose again; 
and all that they have done, all the treasure they have 
poured out, all the men they have sent to battle, all the 
sacrifices they have made, all the evidences they have given 
of an undying love of country, are nothing, nothing, com- 



12 

i with what they yet will do, before they will let tin's 
m perish. 

the bombardment of Sumter, party prejudice and 
- ,\ er. Mm differed in opinion, and 
differed with great bitterness, about all the measuri 
1 rnment. Thecabinet of Buchanan became disintegrated 
with conflicting views of his policy. This policy was 
praised by many — -blamed by more. Equal differences of 
opinion met the policy of the new President. Many thought 

mrse too timid and temporizing; many thought it too 
aggressive and bold, and feared (to use their execrable 
language) that " it would exasperate the South." But when 
th«' bombardment came, then all men Baw at a glance that a 

rnment that could not feed its own starving garrisons 
— that could not command its own forts — was no govern- 
ment at all. They saw at once that the Btruggle was one of 
life and death. And then the Nation rose, and then the 
war began. The Latent patriotism of the people, that had 
been growing and intensifying for three-quarters of a cen- 
tury, burst forth, at last, like a flame; and from that day to 
this, tin' <>nly question before us — the question to be decided 
by cannon, and bullets, and bayonets — has been one of the 
existence of tin' American Union. And whenever men now 
talk about conciliation, and compromise, and peace, while 
five hundred thousand rebels are in arms, they are men of 
that doubtful patriotism, which would not shrink to Bee the 
great American Union blotted from the list ofNati 
1 have my own opinions about the deep underlyin 
that have produced this war, and you have yours. But we 
will uot discuss them to day. They would revive old party 
would jar upon the proprieties of tins occasion ; 
they would detract from that unanimity of thought and 
action which should characterize all true patriots in the 
hour of a nation's agony. The two facts that need to be 

abered are. that the South aims to destroy the Union, 

v..- aim only to preserve it; and it is not a .pie-!:, mi of 
opinion, it is nut a qu( party, it is simply a question 



13 

of patriotism upon Avhich side you arc. There is no middle 
ground to stand upon. A man must be in favor of one thing 
or the other, either the prosecution of the war, on our behalf 
to a triumphant end, or the destruction of the government. 
This is so clear that it were folly to reiterate it, did not 
some men claim to be neutral. Judge Douglas spoke words 
of truth that will live as long as his memory when he said 
"there can be but two classes in this contest, patriots and 
traitors.'''' For the South is not fighting for concessions and, 
compromises, and never has been ; it is fighting to establish 
a new government and to break up the old. It wants no 
peace but upon this basis. And this basis is one which, by 
the help of God, the American people will never grant. 
And why ? First, because they have learned to love their 
country as it is. Patriotism is among the grandest virtues. 
It belongs to the highest elements of character. It gives 
more lustre to historic names than almost any other single 
quality. It intensifies life and makes even death glorious 
and shadowless. But it implies objects. And a country to 
excite the loftiest patriotism is not made in a day, scarce in 
a century. It must have a history. In that history must 
be found the record of immortal names, immortal deeds and 
a career illustrating and exalting immortal principles. And 
such a country is ours, and it must include the whole 
country or patriotism, as we have learned it, is impossible. 
Break up our Union and you mar all our history. You 
write all backward the lessons of our country's glon^ that 
we have learned from earliest childhood. You take from 
us the only object we had learned to regard with patriotic 
fervour. It is like taking from one's home the only being 
that gives it life and loveliness. It is like blotting the sun 
from the heavens. It is taking from us, at a single stroke, 
what men, in all ages of the world, have fought for with the 
most undaunted courage, what no nation on the globe to-day, 
civilized or not, would ever think of yielding without first 
risking annihilation. No; we are satisfied with the Union 
that our Fathers founded. We are satisfied with the 



14 

hich it has I Led. We 

ith the place it haa taken among the nations, 
new experiments in Government. Especially 
iln we want none initiated npon the fragments >f our 
own. We know that to the Union we owe all our pro| 
; iur power, all thai we have, all that we arc. all that we 
can hope t<> I"-. We know that it is the Rag of our Onion 
that is recognized <>n every sea and honoured throughout the 

\W know that our Little, petty, pompous Si 
sink into insignificance when we leave their soil, and that it 
is tin* name of an American citizen that we prize at home, 
ainl that gives ns character abroad. It is not "the rocky 
hills and stone- clad valleys" o N I land, nor the rich 
and undulating surface of the Middle States with their 
■ wealth -bearing mountain ranges, nor the fertile prai- 
• e West, nor the broad savannas of the South, it 
i one of these, but all in one that we have learned to call 
• untry. It is not Adams and Hamilton and Harrison 
and Webster alone, but Washington and Henry and Ja 
Hay that we have learned to venerate among our b 

-men. It is not the battle-fields of New England 

and the Middle States alone, but of Virginia and the Oaro- 

that make up the glory of our Nationality. It is 

impossible to blot these names from our history. It is 

•ssible to erase these memories from our hearts. 

it is impossible to educate a people, with such an ancestry, in 

such annals, and have them enjoy tip- bl< of BUch a 

government for the larger part of a hundred years, and then 
undertaki overnment, either by dora 

or by f>r it creating a convulsion that will 

shake the world. 

re is another reason why we will not accept the 

LCtive alternative demanded by the South. It is 

We believe that by dismembering the Union and 

ing two or more separate governments upon its 

can be no inch thing as permanent peace. We 

that if you cut the Mississippi in two by the border 



15 

line of an alien nation, and deny the boundless wealth of 
the Mississippi Valley all aceess to the ocean, except under 
the frowning fortresses of a foreign power you cannot 
expect to have peace. We believe that to keep our rival 
systems of tariff and revenue from clashing, along a line 
extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, without natural 
defences, through vast regions of wild and thinly populated 
territory, is an impossibility. * 

And then there must be settled all the preliminaries of a 
dissolution — questions of boundary, questions of ownership 
of forts and public property — questions of division of the 
national debt, and of individual obligation — questions of 
river and harbor navigation; and then would arise, UDder 
forms vastly more difficult of adjustment all the old political 
questions that have alienated the sections ; and then would 
come treaties and intrigues with foreign powers, and alli- 
ances entangling us with all the petty quarrels of Europe, 
and keeping us ever implacable enemies, thus rendering us 
impotent and without influence among nations. And this 
is the future to which we are invited. Now we have one 
cause of war; attempt to negotiate a dissolution of the 
Union, and we shall have fifty. And the number would be 
all the more, by reason of the parties with whom we should" 
have to negotiate. For, I maintian that a set of men, who, 
like the leaders of this rebellion, would destroy a govern- 
ment like ours, upon pretexts such as theirs, could not be 
negotiated with, without war. And until their pride is 
humbled, their power broken, until they have been made 
to endure somewhat of the bitterness of that suffering they 
pour out so overwhelmingly upon others, until their arro- 
gance and haughtiness are utterly abased in exile or on 
the scaffold, there can be no peace upon this continent. 

There is still another reason why we will not consent to 
the disruption of the Union. Because the probability is too 
great that it would end here, and in all the world, and for a 
thousand years the experiment of popular government. 
Already the South disdains the rule of the people. In a 



If) 

:' ten millions, they have but three hundred 
thousand slaveholders. Yet, almost every man in power is 
a slaveholder. 11 rnment with them is already 

in the hands of a class. Ami then, the tone oi' their press, 

and the of their statesmen have aimed for ycurs 

le labour, have betrayed a growing dislike for the 
equality of rights demanded by <>ur institutions, and have 

coloured with all the assumption and the aiTi 
an aristocracy. 

And then, the doctrine of Secession, which, thirty years 
.e had supposed was crushed forever under the gigantic 
tread of Webster's Logic and the strokes of Jackson's iron 
•will — this principle of disintegration upon which they would 
their government, would sooner or later drive them 
into despotism. And this principle would not be without 
• upon the North, for it has many advocates here already. 
Men are as apt in learning lessons of evil as of good. One 
successful rebellion would become the parent of others. 
The theory of our government presupposes the existence of 
■ us and diverse local interests, to be controlled by local 
governments. It is impossible for these interests not to be 
sometimes subordinated to the general welfare. Establish 
two confederacies, and the constant temptation would be 
held out to States with similar local interests, fretting under 
imaginary grievances, or maddened by party spirit, to strike 
off from the parent State on the one hand, and form alii- 
- with similarly disaffected portions on the other. The 
interests of the Western and Southwestern States are quite 
connected by the waters of the Ohio, the Missis- 
sippi, and the Missouri, as the interests of either are with 
is upon the Atlantic seaboard, and would be quite 
as Likely to be formed, ultimately, into a third and independ- 
ent government as to remain united with the old. Or 

and California, washed by the waves of another ocean, and 

isands of miles from thecentral government, would be 
especially difficult to hold by the North. And the •• 

of any such subdivisions would be the necessity that 



IT 

must arise for large and ever-increasing military establish- 
ments, both of the army and navy. A frequently recurring 
or a prolonged state of war not only eats up the subs' 
and palsies the industry of a people, but it is incompatible 
with the enlarged liberties we claim for the citizen. The 
qualities of mind and heart which make the greatest generals 
are not commonly those which inculcate the highest regard 
for individual rights. The glare and glitter of military rep- 
utation cannot outshine, in all the avenues to power, the 
ostentatious merits of the statesman and scholar without 
imperilling free institutions. We risk little from these 
causes now. No American general now, were he to mani- 
fest within a year more than the genius of the first Napoleon, 
could undertake to establish a dictatorship over the Ameri- 
can people, without immediately falling from the pedestal of 
power. For we have not forgotten our earliest teachings. 
We have not forgotten that the name of Washington belongs 
to our history. We have been educated in the meaning of 
his great and glorious life, and no man now can command 
any large influence in American affairs, who is not as ready 
to lay down power as to take it up. But, let this people 
learn to lean, for half a century, upon the military arm ; 
place them in a position in which questions must frequently 
arise to be settled only by the sword ; agitate the peaceful 
current of their lives with ever-recurring waves of war ; allow 
their individuality, their liberty of thought and speech, to 
become absorbed, year after year, in that oneness of pur- 
pose, that subordination to another's will, which military 
law requires, and they will become as ready, as others have- 
before them, to seek rest, stability and peace at the expense of 
liberty and equality, under the rigour of despotic rule. 

There is one other thought I would refer to, in considering 
these causes, which keep the North so true to the Union. It 
is this : these same causes must operate poAverfully in hast- 
ening the return of the South to her allegiance, when once 
her military power is broken. I speak, now. upon the sup- 
position that her military power can be broken. This 1 

2 



is 

• er doubl • to. E£ we crash her 

stop for b BeasoD the systematic 
ah deluded, give her time to cool 
an«l consider, ahe will cheerfully return to her allegiance, 
irritory •.. arated from oura by great natural 

a distinot and oppressed nationality 
Polan jary, or Italy, or Ireland ; if her people 

<>i' a differ* at race, Bpoke a different language, prof 
a different religion, and were fighting in a righteous, or at 
ise, — then wo might doubt the possi- 
bility of the restoration of good feeling. There is no doubt 
but thai the South is carrying on the war with great unan- 
imity, for war create-; its own arguments; but there is no 
: • ilieve that the masses of the South have ever 
ivinced that their Leaders were right in beginning 
the war, or that the breaking up of the Union could 
ultimate in anything but disaster to themselves and their 
rity. There is great reason to believe that the arch 
rs themselves did not contemplate, at the outset, the 
iction of this government, with a view of establishing 
two or more independent ours as a final result. They 
wanted a new constitution. They could not change the old 
-tituti'inal way ; they chose to make a new one 
in an unconstitutional way. They expected the Border 
States would immediately come under it; they exp 
soon : b the Middle States, and the lower tier of the 

Northwestern States, and finally all the rest, when these had 
:ie sufficiently humbled. They expected to avoid civil 
war: they thought the North quite too craven and mcrce 
nary for that, and, as a chief means of success in accomplish' 
ends, they counted upon the aid of a powerful 
in the North. This aid they received, backed by such 
journals as the A Herald and SOOres of others, all 

advocating the adoption of the Montgomery Constitution, 
until the bombardment of Fort Sumter awoke the loyalty of 
the Northern masses, and the majesty of the United States 
rnment. 



19 

There is every reason to believe that, if the question of 
disunion had been fairly submitted to the people of the 
South, before the breaking out of the war, they would have 
decided overwhelmingly against it. The whole region had 
been so long saturated and cursed with the political heresies 
of Calhoun, that their regard for State rights, their feeling 
of State pride, had diminished greatly that sentiment of 
nationality so characteristic of the North. But every o 
reason I have given to-day in favour of the value of this 
Union, every other reason that can be given, applies with 
equal force to the South as to the North. They can no more 
afford to do without the Union, than we can. Neither can 
do without it, and ever prosper. And once clear away the 
bitterness of passion, the pride, the rancour and the unrea- 
sonableness that belongs to a state of actual conflict, and the 
masses of the South will admit the fact. And when men 
say the Union is already dissolved, because the sections are 
at war, they exhibit little knowledge of human nature or of 
human history. Have they forgotten that almost every 
country on the globe has had its great rebellion — has been 
scourged with civil war ? Do they believe that the animosi- 
ties now existing between the North and South are any 
more bitter, or likely to prove any more lasting, than those 
engendered by the civil wars of England, or of France, or 
of Spain ? I know these animosities will live long enough — 
too long ; this generation will not survive them. Too much 
anguish, and passion, and venom for that. But history will 
reproduce itself here as elsewhere ; and when we remember 
the past, and how soothing are the influences of trade and 
commerce — how mutually dependent are the products and 
the industries of the sections — how we are bound together 
by railroads, and telegraphs, and water-courses, and ties of 
consanguinity, — there is every reason to believe that, the 
rebellion conquered, the return of good feeling would be 
more speedy and more complete than has usually followed 
the scourge of civil war. 

Thus, fellow citizens, have I attempted to show to you 



20 

y what they fight for who 6 I on— what 

that nerve the aims and inspire the souls 

of the people: 1st, the Bentiment of nationality — a love of 
country, Dot bounded lines, but including the whole 

v. itli its historic names and memories ; 2nd, a b 
that no x permanent peace could follow a dissolution of the 
l oion, and that the wars it would produce would prove 
vastly m< iding than the one now 

and, Bd, the probability, thealmosl certainty, that 
such dissolution would finally result in the entire abandon- 
ment of the democratic principle in government. 

I am aware that, in enlarging upon these points, I have 
told you nothing new. 1 have, perhaps, told you little from 
which you would dissent. Times like these make all men 
thinkers, and on all cardinal points all patriots think alike. 
\\ «• are crowding years into days. Instinctively we recog- 
nise our duties. We learn not cow our lessons of highest 
wisdom from one another. Events, GoYTs I and 

inspirers, are bringing to the surface all our nobler qua! 

objects we had Bet before us as being worthy the strug- 
gle of a life, have all sunk to a lower level, and fa 

ta have arisen, demanding self-abandonment, sell'.-. 
See, and absorbing the whole soul in love of country, in 

for its honour, in sorrow lor its misfortunes, in joy for 

iumphs, in devotion to its Bervice even unto death. 
The prosecution of this war is not with us a matter of 

■ ; we do not regard it as a matter aboutwhich we have 
any right to hesitate or consult our own wishes or intei 
i: comes to as in the sphere of our highest duties; it prompts 
:, not so much what we owe ourselves, as what we 
owe posterity; and we know we shall deserve the just con- 
demnation of history, and the eternal execration of our chil- 
dren, if we do not sacrifice every selfish aim, every social 
comfort, i . r interest of properl 

rather than have tihis Union divided. Beside this ques- 
tion of anion, the question of sla\ med bo important 
by many. bt. Not hut that the latter has im- 



21 

portant bearings on the war, both in the relation of cause 
and cure, but the great issue before us is not one of the good 
or ill of four millions of blacks, but of thirty millions of 
whites. The majestic duty of the hour is to save this Union, 
for ourselves, for our children and the children of those who 
would destroy it, for the unborn millions of the North and 
South, the East and the West. Let us, then, honour the dead 
who die in this cause, and the living mothers who bore them; 
let us honour the heroes who survive the conflict; let their 
children be taught to prize the names they inherit, and let 
it be the joy of the living and the solace of those who mourn 
the dead, that the men whose names are enrolled on the side 
of the Government, in the battles of '61 and '62, will live 
forever in the hearts of their countrymen, side by side with 
the soldiers of our great Washington. And, moreover, if 
this war be as righteous as we believe it, it becomes us to 
counteract, by word and deed, those influences, so wide- 
spread, so noxious, and withal so active in diffusing a con- 
trary belief. For there are some men in all sections of the 
North, some even in the halls of Congress, some men and 
some women in every community, who stigmatise this Avar 
on our behalf as wicked and inhuman ; and it would be a 
shame upon our civilization, a reproach upon our courage, 
our intelligence and our patriotism, and the moral tone of 
our communities, if we did not meet these calumnies with 
fitting rebuke, and if we did not our utmost to prevent a 
shade of doubt or suspicion as to the righteous nature of this 
war from polluting our northern air, and from invading those 
northern homes made desolate by the news of battle and of 
loved ones dying amid its terrors. This is- no time for half- 
way measures or half-way men. This is no time for the 
deepest convictions of the heart to falter upon the lips, from 
motives of mere worldly prudence. Things must be called 
by their right names. Deeds must be approved or emphati- 
cally condemned. Men must be what they seem. For or 
against the Government they must take their stand. Justice, 
and judgment, and mercy, demand that there be no trifling, 



no & do equivocation now. Wars h 

■ which we can differ, bui tliu 
em. 
The Pr of the Unite IS LI hia 

il is his duty to 'I-. 
destruction. I iponsibility never rested upon a 

ruler, and he has done hia duty eminently well. Be has a 
right 1 ' mpathy and active aid of every citizen, [nsorae 

' e may have overstepped his constitutional p<> 
Men, if true and loyal, may differ from him as to hia policy 
and | and their opinions be entitled to respect, 

but they should praise vastly more than blame. Bui men, 
who condemn him yet condemn no1 the rebellion he is trying 
to crush are nol entitled to respect. The President, his 
advisors i its may err ; they are but human, but their 

i save the Constitution and Union ; tin- object of 
South is the destruction of Loth, and wherever and 
whenever you find men who denounce the former fiercely 
and tlif latter faintly, whose eyes are so microscopic that 
they can discover, in the records of Ooi part- 

ments, Haws in legislation and frauds in contracts, and yet 
cannot see the tremendous fraud and crime of this rebellion : 
whenever you find men who cry peace, peace, and who mean 
and can't mean otherwise, the independence of the 
.South, the submission of the North, the dissolution of the 
I d and the death of republican liberty, then von have 
found the deadliest foes your couutry has in these dark and 
trying hours. 

We shall succeed in crushing this Rebellion. True, 
tidings of disaster float upon the air. Clod pity the dying 

soldier, and the desolate homes throughout the land. If we 
have lost a great battle the war is just begun. We may 

lose on.- battle, we may lose fifty, but we will gain more 
than WO lose, and will Conquer in the end. AVe have two 

men to their one; we have ten times their wealth ; we hold 

i\e infinite resources in reserve upon land : we 
that will keep us ever hopeful and defiant, and 



23 

in the end we must conquer. But we have lessons of wis- 
dom jet to learn, and we must learn some from our enei 
Every dollar of property among them, owned by us, they 
confiscate and use against us in war. Every dollar of debt 
owed by their citizens to ours they claim as the property of 
their government. They tolerate no enemies among them. 
Men who do not heartily support them they drive out of 
their country, or into the ranks of their armies. We have 
not dared to attack them with their own weapons. They 
never can he conquered till ive do; and it may be true that we 
can only learn wisdom in the severe school of defeat and dis- 
aster. But learn it we must and will, and we will teach 
them, and teach the world, at whatever sacrifice of means and 
life, that republican liberty in America was not born to die. 
We know, and we must teach them, that our life-long enthu- 
siasm for popular government, our life- long hope° for its 
spread throughout the world, that all the memories that 
cluster around this sacred day, hallowing our past and 
brightening our future, are all involved in, are impossible 
without, the perpetuity of this Union. We know that our 
lives are worth nothing, that all our aims and achievements 
are valueless, that we can claim no high standard for con- 
duct or character, that we can find no link to bind us to the 
immortal men who signed that Declaration,* if we are to 
leave behind us, as a heritage for our children, a Union 
"divided, discordant, belligerent," instead of "Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 



* The Declaration of Independence which had just been read by John 
Rodgers, Esq. 



*60 



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